He expected to have to wait years for news, but was startled to get information almost immediately that led to the identification of his village and his mother after police also started to investigate.

A video of mother and son meeting at the weekend for the first time in decades was published by Shanghai news site The Paper, after a reunion was organised by the police.

He fell to the ground and she began wailing.

“I’ve finally found my little baby,” his mother was quoted as saying. Li later shared a meal with his mother and other relatives, and showed them the map he had drawn of bamboo forests and paddy fields.

In the intervening years, Li’s mother had unknowingly moved to the same province in central China where her abducted son had been taken, and their new homes were 60 miles apart.

Li said he would return to Yunnan to pay homage to his father, who had passed away.

He said he had been inspired to post the map online by recent high-profile reunions of parents and children after years apart. 

Child abduction and trafficking is a chronic problem in China. Previous limits on the number of children couples could have, as well as a traditional preference for boys, have fuelled a thriving market in babies and children.

It was not immediately clear whether the family who raised Li would be prosecuted, or whether the identity of his abductor 33 years ago was known.